


Victory

by canterville



Category: Jupiter Ascending (2015)
Genre: AU, Canon Typical Incestual Vibes, Gen, One Shot, angst angst angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-08
Updated: 2015-04-08
Packaged: 2018-03-21 23:01:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 931
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3706893
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/canterville/pseuds/canterville
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jupiter Jones is dead, the Earth is out of his grasp, the refinery is sinking, and still he stays.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Victory

There is no triumph in the familiar way her body goes slack, the way she lays on the floor, not to rise again. It is not a relief to see her eyes turn to glass like they should. His mother’s body lies still at his feet, exorcised of the impostor who had possessed it. Jupiter Jones is dead. His mother is dead. But she has been dead before. Balem is on his knees beside her, a tremor reverberating through the floor and through his bones. When he looks out over his erupting stockworks, he cannot calculate the cost of the damages in a glance. The planet is ripping the refinery apart. He does not tremble at the sight, but when he stretches out his fingers to caress Jupiter’s cooling cheek, they quake. No more misery. Just the sweet singing of the Void. Perhaps she is not at peace, but it will be some time before Recurs, and learns again, what it is to suffer. Earth is out of reach, and while not all is lost, it is difficult to desire the salvage that will remain. It was never that wretched blue planet that mattered. The machine will stay in motion with or without that tiny, precious, cogwheel.  
  
Another, deeper shudder goes through the stockworks as it continues to sink. It is not resignation that keeps Balem from fleeing to safety, not grim acceptance. Everything is burning bright umber and full of the bleak promise of release. Mercy is rising up from below, descending from on high, to bear them both away. It is not Seraphi’s body that he gathers into his arms, but it feels like her. Her head lolls against his chest, chin dropping to conceal the bruises that linger on like black residue, some part of his touch melted into her waxen skin. Soon the air will turn to poison. Soon this place, too, will ignite with their reckoning.  
  
Even in the blind depths of his rage, Balem knew there could be no other outcome. To know it for a truth, now, brings stinging tears to his eyes. Time collapses in on itself, the first and last moments that he clutched this lifeless body to him coalescing. The agony is symphonic, dispersing like a thousand dissonant notes inside him, splintering on every jagged sob that wrenches its way out. He does not know if he weeps for her, for himself, or for the both of them, but he cannot stop. His collar constricts as he looks down into that still face that he knows so well, he knows _so well_ , and transmutes his sobs into a plea.  
  
“Come back!” The words taste of salt, betraying him even as they strangle in his throat, and come as unbidden now as they did the first time. Desperate and useless. She can never return the way she was. Whatever filled this vessel was not her, and whatever will fill the next will not be that which preceded it. “Come back!” He leans his forehead against hers, their faces now so close that if there were even one breath left in her, he would have felt it. “Come back to me.” There is nothing. There is not even silence as the storm presses in, ravening for blood. Their bodies will never be found. They can end together. Had that been what she wanted? Had that been what the end of RegenX-E could have given them? There are no answers in the stillness of her face, but for a moment, he thinks he sees a sadness in it. This is the face he remembers; the one that understands him as no one else ever could. They are together again, and as distant as they had been when the Recurrence looked into his eyes and denied him. But that awful creature that reanimated her body has now fled, and he can see her clearly.  
  
Slowly, for even in this, an Abrasax knows nothing of haste, he cradles her body in his arms, and stands. Her weight is difficult to bear, but even with a body aching from their last, vicious fight, he manages. Another tremor shakes the foundations of the stockworks, but his bones, by now, seem to resonate at the same frequency, and he does not stumble. He takes a step toward the edge of the platform. The maw below beckons. _We don’t have to do this again_. Those had almost been his words, and now the thought returns. What good is it to live in suspense that another Recurrence might appear? To build a life hinged on putting these ghosts back in their graves? He holds her body closer, and takes another step. How cruel. How cruel of her to die making certain that she would rise at least once more to tear his heart in two. _It doesn’t have to end like this_. It only has to end.  
  
Balem does not get to take that last step off the platform. Everything begins to fall. Section after section shakes apart, structures reduced to unrecognizable debris. The refinery is suddenly alive and it thrashes like a wounded thing, casting him off into the abyss. There is no sound in the ‘Verse like the cry of an immortal beast ending its life in fire and wreckage. Even as he bears them both willingly into merciful oblivion, the scream that comes howling out is an inhuman sound, centuries of anguish and neglect folded in, turned to silver release.  
  
And, at the last, he pulls the toxic air into his lungs, and cries out for his mother.


End file.
